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Leocardo Reis Jun 2021
During the shooting of
Fellini's movie
8 1/2
he had a sign that said
"This is a comedy",
to remind the actors
that it was all a farce.

I feel that perhaps
I am sometimes misunderstood.
All my emotions are tempered,
I exaggerate only for effect.
I can pace myself
in both happiness and
misery.
Should I, too, hang the sign,
"This is a comedy"
on every poem I write?
Leocardo Reis Jun 2021
If not,
I will settle
for
tenderness.
Leocardo Reis Jun 2021
I throw away
a tube of toothpaste
to discover
it was the last one.
In bitter defeat
I fish the toothpaste out of the trash
and attempt to squeeze out,
once more,
a morsel
of toothpaste.
Leocardo Reis Jun 2021
During the time
in between
my two most recent mosquito bites,
we had met
and you had left.
Tonight,
I pensively trace over
the brim of the
first mosquito bite of the year,
reminiscing.
Leocardo Reis May 2021
In view of others,
I am of little consequence.
It is as though I am
a dandelion seed,
left to the whim of a storm,
or a bleeding lamb
encircled by a pack of
prowling wolves.

I can be torn apart easily,
flesh from bone,
soul from body,
for practically free.
The smallest cuts would easily
bleed me for all I have.
My heart is crushed by the simplest things,
just as I can be crushed
by the simplest of men!
One word, that is all I need,
for a sleepless night.
My imagination is wild,
and needlessly cruel.
In my own head,
I've imagined different ways that
I will be humiliated, hurt and killed!
At night, my insecurities run amok
and race through my head
with an incessant screeching,
carving into the inside of my skull
new ideas, new doubts about myself
which, by daybreak,
I learn are actually true!
Ha, it's ******* pathetic!

They are wolves!
And I am to be slaughtered!
Almost as if it's for show.
It happens daily.
I wonder at this point
is there any limit to my embarrassment?
Won't someone deliver me from my own shortcomings
and faults?
I wait, but all that come are
wolves,
tearing away at me, once again,
for another night!
Oh, how I tire of it!
I know I am inadequate,
of little physical worth,
but must they be so brazen about it?
I wish to be alone sometimes,
but I am equally terrible company.
The sobbing,
the rambling,
I am a boring person
who has earned his ridicule!

Sometimes, in retaliation,
I try to cast away the ghosts
by writing poetry.
But even I struggle to say it is worth reading!
A disgrace to the art, if I do say so myself.
But don't get me wrong,
it is not nothing to be called a disgrace,
even terribleness must have its maestros.
Perhaps, I am one!
I have found my place then!
In the *******!
Ha. Ha. Ha.

The longevity of my existence
is seemingly at the mercy of others.
How little would it take it to
forget someone like me?
If it is wished,
I can be snuffed out,
put out
like embers
and turned into ash,
it would be so easy,
they could do it
without even knowing.
Who will remember me then?
And what will they remember?
Someone who could be stamped into the dirt
and disintegrate, like crumbs of refuse.
Perhaps it would be more merciful
to forget me than
to be remembered as that!

When my feelings are hurt, I always retreat.
And where do I retreat?
Of course, it is here,
into poetry,
where I can trade shame
for mediocrity,
where I can pretend that
I am above it all
because I write a little bit
of **** prose,
some garbage that equates to
nothing more than
whimpering.
You sometimes have to laugh at yourself.

But one day,
I will be better.
The wolves will still
feed upon me.
But I will be better.
Leocardo Reis May 2021
I am troubled,
despite the fact
I feel as though I am
perched on a cloud.

Does a flower
announce its blooming?
Likewise should I announce
each happiness
and sorrow?
I am in such conflict about this.

Part of poetry is to
exaggerate through
omission.
Here, I can only
show what I had felt,
never tell.

I wonder if I have adequately expressed,
with the few words I have wrote,
that all my poems are about
the things I have purposefully omitted?

Tonight, my heart is a torrent.
I wish to use names,
but I cannot.
I wish to state my emotions,
but I must not.
Perhaps it is because I am
not truly a poet,
but all I can do is
emphasize absence.
Leocardo Reis May 2021
Everyday, I am tired,
Oh so tired
I might fall asleep at work
And get myself fired~
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